Law and regulation

For years, there's been a lot of talk about personal information as an unalloyed asset. But by now it should be clear that the more information a company has about its customers, the bigger a target it is for hackers.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Jan. 12 on the nomination of Dr. Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The lending arm of U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed 3,439 single-family construction loans in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, which ended Dec. 31, but just nine of those loans involved its new single-close construction to permanent financing option.

A California consumer group on Thursday urged the Senate Finance Committee to delay Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin's nomination hearing after a leaked 2013 memo described alleged illegal foreclosure practices at OneWest Bank when he was chairman and CEO.

One of the designers who worked on Kasisto's chatbot Kai argues that technologists are perpetuating female stereotypes; SoFi has some unusual ideas about how to get to know its customers better; and Fidelity gives in to the ETF trend. Also, Cathy Engelbert, Barbara Boxer and Megyn Kelly.

Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati has a new chief legal officer.

In addition to citing fears about loosening underwriting standards, cyber threats and potential obsolescence, the OCC added sales practices as a source of significant risk to the banking industry in response to Wells Fargo's recent phony-accounts scandal.

Any method for unwinding too-big-to-fail institutions that tries to avoid bailouts is a fool's errand. A more effective path may be reducing the size of TBTF banks or regulating them as utilities.

WASHINGTON – Retailers are fighting back against financial industry efforts to repeal a cap on debit interchange fees.

Loan modification activity has fallen dramatically at national banks over the past year, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.